The 29^th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Environmental Education was held from August 24-26, 2018 at Tokyo Gakugei University. The year 2018 was two years before commemorating the 30^th anniversary of the founding of the Society.

  The theme for the meeting was “Looking Back on the Roots of Environmental Education: Life, Environment and People.” The concept of the theme was to deliberate from the beginning the path the Society has taken what it is and where it will lead to find seeds and germinate new environmental education. The original proposer of the theme was the Executive Director of the Annual Meeting’s Executive Committee, the author of this paper.

  The paper consists of two parts. First, it explains what the author considered in conceiving the theme based on the impact of the Annual Meeting in the history of the Society, the present state of environmental education in Japan both in practice and in research, and the reasons for choosing, and the intentions, implications and assumptions of the theme.

  Second, the paper describes the conceptions of the Public Symposium, which took place on the second day of the Annual Meeting, based on the form, contents and organization of the symposium. Composed of a keynote speech and a panel discussion, it searched the roots of environmental education and the surrounding conditions. The record of the Symposium will follow the paper.

  This research focuses on “Learning about the Oriental White Stork,” which is one of the themes for “Local Education” introduced in Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan in FY2017, and verifying its effect. As indicators, environmental education (white stork), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and local education (Toyooka City) were selected. The target of this research was all fifth-grade students and their teachers in 29 elementary schools in the city. Questionnaire surveys were used as the means for gathering information. Regarding the children, though the recognition level of the white stork improved, there was no change in ESD and positive recognition of Toyooka City decreased. In the questionnaire to the teachers, it was found that learning about the white stork was based on investigative learning in the classroom, and teachers utilized guest speakers and/or supplementary reading. The questionnaire to the teachers showed that children should acquire more attachment to and pride for Toyooka City than becoming more knowledgeable of the white stork itself. However, it was found that this expectation was not backed by the results of the questionnaire given to the children. In summary, in the future, increasing ESD and local learning should be considered for learning about the white stork.

  Although many good examples of environmental activities have been collected and shown in Japan, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) should be more than simply the accumulation of good deeds. Its purpose is to cultivate human resources capable of realizing a sustainable global society through local activities. This requires the ability to reflect on the global meaning and value of one’s own local activities in order to find ways of sharing the experience and working together globally. In this paper, we propose a deliberation model for analyzing the contexts of the activities. Using an “analysis structure chart” we developed, local participants deliberate on their own activities and structurally “visualize” them to determine core meaning and sharable value. This model is applicable to other activities as a general ESD tool.